Arsenal manager Renee Slegers has praised Beth Mead’s recent form and said it is an example of her mental strength. Mead has experienced greater rotation at club and national team level over the last 18 months but has been in fine form for club and country recently.
Mead’s end product has never really dipped, but the number of minutes she is playing has dipped slightly, Slegers says Mead’s performances are a testament to her mental strength and her urgency.
‘In high competitive environments, which is where I would categorise England and Arsenal, you have to perform and when chances come, you have to take them and I think Beth is a really good example that she was ready when the opportunity was there and she plays with conviction.
‘She plays with high belief and an urgency in everything she does. So she’s in in a really good place, so it’s always good to see players, when they get opportunities and there’s an expectation of delivery that they live up to it and I think that’s really a good example of it. It shows a lot of mental strength.’
Arseblog News also asked Slegers about Arsenal’s preference for low deliveries into the box. The Gunners have benefited from a number of own goals in recent months from low crosses and have scored a number of goals from low setpieces too (for further analysis, see [this week’s newsletter](https://awnewsletter.arseblog.com/low-deliveries-the-key-to-arsenal-womens-own-goal-bounty/)).
‘There’s different things to it, of course, I was a little secret about it last week, I think everyone that understands and watches football, if you attack fast and then that pass comes early in between back line and goalkeeping those are the situations that can happen.
‘We want to play towards our strength, and also looking at the opposition strengths. So of course, when there’s players in in the box that have a lot of height and have high aerial success and we look to cross differently and the other way around too.
‘But I think every team will do that you’ll always look at where your strengths and where are the weaknesses in your position and they have a game on with principles that you always want to follow. So it’s a mixture of those things.’
Slegers also swapped both her full-backs last weekend, with Jenna Nighswonger and Emily Fox replacing starters Taylor Hinds and Katie McCabe. Arseblog News asked Slegers about the prospect of rotation in those positions in-game.
‘If you look at the contributions that plays have heads and that’s engaged, but also in a training environment, the whole squad is involved in what we do, and then we always look at readiness of players to perform, what qualities do we need, what’s the qualities of opposition and so forth.
‘Then we try to make good decisions and we are in a luxury position where we have an enormous squad with so much quality and that’s where we can make our decisions and that’s our starting point with the importance of partnerships on the pitch.’